1900, Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Japan, Russia, Italy and Austria jointly launched a war of aggression against China on the pretext of suppressing the Boxer Rebellion. Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing from Tianjin, and was stubbornly blocked by the Boxer Rebels and patriotic officers and men of the Qing army near Langfang. He was forced to return to Tianjin, but soon he sent more troops, occupied Tianjin in July and invaded Beijing again in August. The headquarters of the allied commander, German Vadexi, is located in Beijing. Empress Dowager Cixi fled with Emperor Guangxu and made arrangements to make peace with the invaders. Eight-Nation Alliance burned and looted in Beijing, and a large number of treasures in the Summer Palace became the bag of the invaders.
Finally, after the invading army ransacked Yuanmingyuan, in order to cover up the crime, British Minister Plenipotentiary Erkin, with the support of British Prime Minister Pa Max Don, ordered the Yuanmingyuan to be burned. Then the question is, why did Eight-Nation Alliance set fire to this great building after robbing it? There are two reasons: First, Eight-Nation Alliance wantonly destroyed Yuanmingyuan, and all the gold, silver and jewels embedded in many buildings were scraped away, which was a very tragic process. The guards and maids inside witnessed their evil deeds, so they lost all the evidence and shocked China!
The second reason is their narrow and selfish psychology. They took away a lot of gold, silver and jewels from China, but they didn't want to keep some for the people of China. They took what they could and burned what they couldn't. They would rather destroy it than leave it to the people of China, the real owners of these properties! Although China is relatively peaceful with many countries up to now, we can't forget those shameful moments in the past. Only by remembering these things can we motivate ourselves and make our country more prosperous!